


Systems Error

by Yeah_JSmith



Series: Ruff Stuff [11]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Best Friends, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 06:39:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15924941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeah_JSmith/pseuds/Yeah_JSmith
Summary: The way Judy tells it, she stayed with her best friend until her wounds healed over enough to hide them. It's true enough in the abstract, but that's not quite the way Sharla Woolston remembers it.





	Systems Error

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to mersharr, whose insight and editing helped a ton.
> 
> Also, WHY ARE NAMES HARD.

When a friend calls, you answer. So when Judy’s name popped up on the screen of Sharla’s brand-spankin-new BlueBerry (she’d saved up a _year’s_ worth of money made from yard work and babysitting just to get a decent cell phone), Sharla dropped her physics packet and answered. “Hey, Babe, what’s up?”

“Ca-an…” Sharla frowned and sat up straight, waiting through the pause that she might have interrupted in another situation. Judy’s voice never wavered like that. She didn’t cry, not like other mammals did. When she was stressed or scared, she got aggressive–scary, even–and when she was sad, she just didn’t talk very much. Some of their meaner classmates liked to joke that Judy was probably a psychopath, her bright smile and boundless optimism just a cover, but Sharla had been on the receiving end of Judy’s deep compassion. Her best friend only cared about what others thought when they perceived her as vulnerable. Weak. _Cute._ Judy’s breathing on the end of the line was quick and loud–the opposite of cute in Sharla’s mind. “Can you come get me? I’m still at school.”

“Yeah,” she said–the fact that Judy had actually _asked_ for help was enough to make Sharla drop what she was doing. “Yeah, give me a few minutes, I have to put on a shirt. Where are you on campus?”

“S-south end.” Quiet apprehension, the likes of which had never been present in her voice before. “In the greenhouse.”

Sharla held the phone against her ear with her shoulder while she fumbled with her orange gingham shirt, the one that had snaps up the front in place of buttons, cursing her clumsiness for slowing her down. They’d been there for each other through rejections, breakups, embarrassments, awards, triumphs, and the usual weird happenings of teenage life.They’d had each other’s backs through all these ups and downs and now Sharla’s stupid slippery hooves wouldn’t even–

Fuck it. She would just go in her tiny tank top.

“Honey, talk to me,” she said, grabbing her rattan schoolbag from her bed. Walking down the hall toward the front door, she pulled her wired earpiece out of the inside pocket and attached it to her phone, so she could keep Judy talking while she drove. Mama would lose her shit if she knew, but she wasn’t going to be home until Sunday, and who cared what she thought, anyway? “Tell me what you see.”

“ _Solanum lycopersicum_ ,” Judy said, sounding...a bit robotic. Sharla walked faster, deciding not to bother locking the door when she slammed it shut behind her. She didn’t know much about brains, or about bunnies, but after years of cheer injuries and weird farm accidents, she did know a little something about her best friend’s tendency to blur the line between compartmentalization and dissociation. “The fruit is edible, but the top and stem are poisonous to a lot of mammals. It’s part of the Solanaceae family, and was commonly believed to be fully poisonous long ago. Development suggests they have been growing for 20 days or so, and–”

“New topic.” Sharla jerked open the door of her truck. Her family didn’t have a farm, but in a town like Bunnyburrow where half the roads were still made of dirt, a slick city car made no sense, and it took two tries to start because the goddamn _ignition key_ slipped out of the groove _twice_ because of course it would when she was trying to hurry but she knew she couldn’t just let the conversation lapse so she pretended she wasn’t annoyed with her own hooves when she suggested, “Tell me about practice.”

“It was practice,” came the dull reply. So _that_ was it. Usually Judy was full of stories and terminology, acrobatic moves that Sharla could probably describe in equations by the time she graduated from college but wouldn’t be able to physically pull off in a million years. She doubted any of Judy’s teammates would have done anything to harm her, since she was their best flyer and an important part of their competitive routines, but because of her intensity and singular focus, Judy wasn’t particularly well-liked. She could have been cornered after practice and beaten up or _–or_ _worse–_

She pushed harder on the pedal and tried to sound like she was smiling, like her heart wasn’t racing. “Did you do any new stunts?”

“No.” A sharp sip of air, the distant sound of scraping. “Tell me about your space stuff.”

“Okay,” she said easily, keeping an eye out for any of the three local constables while she sped toward the school. The roads were clear. “Mr. Hopalong _–_ remember him, the natural sciences teacher from sixth?–well, he once mentioned that Jupiter was a failed star. I didn’t question it at the time, but I’ve been doing some research, and that’s not true _at all._ So not only is Mr. Hopalong a big fat liar, but right now I’m doing a new project on the formation of gas giants. Did you know that core accretion can’t account for gas giants and gravitational instability doesn’t work properly for planets like ours?”

Silence.

“Judy?”

“Someone’s coming,” Judy whispered.

“It’s probably just the potheads who always smoke outside the greenhouse. Hang tight, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Anyway, obviously a high schooler isn’t going to solve the problem, but maybe if I get a scholarship to the University of Arcadia, I can study under Dr. Greenleaf.” She paused, waiting for Judy to acknowledge the name they’d been discussing since Sharla had discovered a paper on binary black holes. Judy only breathed in her ear. Hoping to at least keep Judy _present,_ she continued, “She’s a huge name in astrophysics right now. Otherwise I’m gonna have to go to Podunk College because it’s the only local cheap school with a decent physics program and an observatory. Did whoever it was come in?”

“No.”

“Good, good. I’m almost there, okay?” She could see the school already. It was only a short drive to begin with, four minutes at most, but Sharla was a nervous friend. She always had been. When Bobby Catmull had come down with a strain of some feline-specific illness, she’d ended up making _herself_ sick, picturing terrible scenarios about his death, and why hadn’t Judy sought _him_ out, anyway? He was probably still in the band room. “Judy, say something.”

“Smells weird now.”

She pulled into the parking lot and jumped out of her truck, not bothering to do more than put the car in park. She wasn’t going to be very long. “I’ll be in the greenhouse in a sec. I’m hanging up now. Is that okay?”

Silence.

“Okay, I’ll keep talking to y _–_ you hung up. And I’m talking to myself. Great.”

She dropped her phone into her pocket, cringed at the scent of cheap cannabis, and pulled open the greenhouse door, immediately feeling the pressure on her lungs. She’d never liked plants, or dirt, or anything else that girls from farming towns were supposed to like, and the greenhouse made it all feel worse, but she had a friend in need. At first, she didn’t see Judy, but she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see her best friend curled up under a planting table. Judy was still in her cheer uniform under a pink blouse, which Sharla would normally tease her for, but she was more concerned with the blood that had dripped onto Judy’s shoulder from the three gouges in her cheek. It looked like somebody had taken razors to her face. Her blouse, cheer skirt, and the other half of her face were covered in dirt and grass stains, and there was a new rip in her shirtsleeve, but nothing could overshadow the sight of Judy’s cheek, still dripping, under her alarmingly glassy eyes.

She dropped to her knees and tried not to fuss. Judy didn’t react, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

“Who did this to you?”

“Um,” Judy said, sounding vague and looking confused at what should have been a simple question. She squeezed her paws together and did not elaborate further.

Who _could_ have done that? Who had that level of venom in them and was _willing_ to hurt another student? Judy may not have been well-liked, but surely nobody hated her enough to hurt her like this, right? Well, there was _one,_ wasn’t there? She remembered the scene in the atrium from earlier that day, Judy’s uncharacteristically malicious sneer and the laughing cop, and her stomach sank as she realized the cuts hadn’t been made with blades. He was so much bigger than Judy, big enough to _–_ what _else_ had he done? “It was Gideon Grey, wasn’t it?”

Judy nodded, pulling her shoulders in, and Sharla’s mind went through all the places in Bunnyburrow she could successfully hide a body. The Old Barn _–_ it was condemned, only stupid middle school students went there _–_ or the community garden flowerbeds, maybe. There were miles and miles of empty road between Bunnyburrow and Podunk; she could take her truck and go on a “day trip” to the Deerbrooke Observatory. Emma Loplin, Judy’s ex, would probably help. Judy wouldn’t even have to _know._ She could catch a copperhead and _–_

_Slow down, girl._

Whatever had happened, it was enough to make her best friend hide. All the gory details of Gideon Grey’s demise could be plotted later, if what she suspected was true, but right now Judy needed her.

“Come on, let’s get you home,” she said gently, extending her hoof. Judy pulled her limbs in closer and shook her head. Sharla frowned, but didn’t push. “Or we could go to my house. My parents aren’t home.”

Judy closed her eyes and asked, in a quavering voice, “Did you see him out there?”

“No. I did not,” Sharla replied, trying very hard not to sound angry. Judy was supposed to be indomitable. That was her _thing._ This curled-up bunny with drooping ears and fear in her voice was an aberration, the gas giant messing up core accretion theory, and _Gideon Grey_ had done this to her. “Come on, honey. You can lie down in the seat, and if we do see him I’ll hit him with my truck.”

She hoped she did see him. Just so she could run him over.

“Oh, no,” Judy fretted, distress threading through her vowels. “I’m gonna get blood on your seat.”

“That seat’s had unidentifiable stains since before I got it. You’ll be fine. Now come out from under there.” Sharla felt like she was coaxing a toddler out of a hiding spot, like she should be holding out a cookie or a carrot or something, and she _hated_ treating her own best friend like this, but what else could she do? “We’re gonna go to my house, and we’ll get you cleaned up. I promise I’ll keep you safe, Jude. I _promise.”_

“Don’t let anybody see me,” was Judy’s whispered plea, and Sharla hated Gideon like she’d never hated anyone before.

“I promise,” she said again, taking Judy’s bag so that she could stand with shaking knees.

It really _wouldn’t_ be hard to hide a body. Judy wouldn’t even have to know.

* * *

The gashes needed to be dealt with. Disinfected, at the very least. But Judy was curled up again, looking very small on Sharla’s bed with her back to the corner, eyes flicking from the door to the window and back again, and Sharla wasn’t sure if she was supposed to force the issue or sit in silence or leave her best friend _alone_ or what. Usually, Dad’s fits _–_ flashbacks, they were called, even if he didn’t think he deserved to use the term _–_ didn’t last long, and Mama took him to bed when he stepped outside himself like Judy was doing. But Sharla had no idea what was supposed to happen _now,_ and every time she suggested calling a helpline or calling Bonnie or maybe just calling a doctor, Judy would shake her head.

“I can get you another blanket,” she said helplessly.

“Okay,” her best friend replied, which was at least a verbal response. Sharla stepped out to get a spare from the linen closet and debated calling Bobby for information. It was the best way to get reliable information about treating claw injuries: young cubs often scratched themselves and others when learning coordination and fine motor skills, and she was sure he would know what to do. But she couldn’t betray Judy’s trust like that. Sharla wasn’t sure what was going through that bunny brain, but the result was an obvious need to keep this a secret.

 _Why?_ That was the question of the hour.

After grabbing the first-aid kit from the top shelf, Sharla closed the closet door and let herself back into her bedroom, making sure to leave the door open a crack. Bunnies didn’t like to feel trapped; it was an instinctual thing she knew about because Bunnyburrow was about 88% rabbits, even if the number of rabbit _families_ was about the same as the number of families of different species. Maybe she’d bring up population statistics as a potential topic of conversation while she tried to patch up Judy’s face. That was always a fun joke.

“Jude,” she hedged, holding up both the blanket at the first-aid kit, “we need to clean those cuts. Elsewise you’re gonna get an infection. That okay?”

“I...Yeah.”

While Sharla set up shop on the bed, Judy rearranged herself, obviously trying to look less pathetic, but it only served to look heartbreaking. Sharla wanted to tell her that she didn’t always have to be the strongest mammal in the room, that she was allowed to have negative feelings or whatever, but the words wouldn’t form right in her mouth. This interpersonal interaction stuff was so much harder than the sterile elegance of physics. She felt guilty for yearning for the vast emptiness of space when she should be focusing on the present pain of her best friend, but numbers didn’t hurt you, and stars didn’t have feelings, even when they went supernova. In the celestial scope, cataclysmic events could be translated into equations and formulas that could express more than mere words. Working on the ISS would be _safe:_ the only potential dangers would be engineering issues. She could deal with feeling alone and helpless in the face of empty space and numeric data. In the face of personal trauma that couldn’t be solved mathematically, being alone and helpless _sucked._

She draped the spare blanket around Judy’s shoulders and opened the lid of the kit. It wasn’t one of the fancy first-aid kits from the school nurse’s office, but they at least had iodine, gauze, and weird stretchy tape that wasn’t supposed to pull your fur or wool or hair out. It would look lame wrapped around Judy’s head, but at least she would be able to see, and it was the weekend, so nobody would see _her._

“You know,” Sharla said conversationally as she shook the open bottle of iodine with a cotton ball over the neck, “our ancestors used to lick their wounds. Ethologists _say_ it’s because they had a lot of iodine in their saliva, but I don’t know how true that is. It wouldn’t work now. Guess it kinda hammers home why ethology is a soft science. Geneticists can mostly agree on the hard data but as soon as they move onto the _why_ it’s basically speculation.”

Judy shied away from the cotton ball for a second, but drew herself up and allowed Sharla to somewhat clumsily wipe the blood from her cheek. It was mostly drying or dried now, and it was going to be a hassle getting it out of Judy’s fur, but that could be done after they’d seen what the damage was.

“Sorry. My hooves are terrible for this,” she murmured when she slipped a little. Judy’s face was tiny; now that they were almost adults, Sharla was approximately 0.9 meters taller and 39 kilograms heavier. It was a little crazy to think they’d once been about the same size. “Good thing I’m not plannin’ on being a surgeon, right?”

Judy laughed shakily. “Would be a loss to astrosif–astrosfic–cheese and crackers, _astrophysics_ –if you were.”

It was...a decent mimic of their usual exchanges, but it wasn’t Judy. Was she supposed to say that? Would it be worse to bring attention to it? Why had Gideon gone and done this, anyway? Why couldn’t mammals just be _nice_ to each other? The more she grew older, Sharla realized, wincing in Judy’s place as the jagged edges of the claw marks became obvious, the more removed she felt. Mammals didn’t make any sense. Judy was gonna be a police officer, and one day maybe she’d be injured in a way that couldn’t be helped with iodine and gauze, and Sharla would be attending a funeral instead of moderate lacerations. Bonnie and Stu had always tried to dissuade Judy from going after her dream, and Sharla had thought that was total birdshit, but she was starting to see why they worried.

One teenage fox had done this, had made Judy bleed and driven her under a planting table in the school greenhouse. Real criminals wouldn’t bother with claws, probably. They’d just shoot her with bullets, so they didn’t have to see the damage for themselves. It was so easy to think of “the weirder Hopps” as invincible, un-put-downable, but she wasn’t. She was small, and she was just as mortal as anybody else. Finally, Sharla understood why Emma Loplin had broken up with Judy even though they were good together. They were almost adults now, and Emma wanted a partner who wasn’t going to up and die on her.

It was maybe a little slimy to be thinking this way, to assume the worst for such a capable and determined mammal, but she couldn’t _help_ it. The scent of Judy’s blood was nauseating and the unacknowledged stutter served as another, smaller reminder. They were both mortal, but at least astronauts weren’t in as much danger of getting maimed or killed in the course of their duties.

“This looks bad,” she said with a grimace. “I don’t think you’ll need stitches, but I ain’t a– _I’m not_ a doctor.”

“I don’t need stitches,” Judy answered.

“You sure?”

“He didn’t get me that hard. It just...I was a little startled, is all. Kinda lame, right? It probably won’t even scar.”

She looked at Judy, trying not to gape, but _really?_ It would definitely scar, firstly, and secondly, hiding in the frickin’ greenhouse wasn’t _a little startled._ “You’re gonna have scars for sure, honey.”

“Well even so, maybe I deserve ‘em.”

Her childhood bedroom, with its cheery yellow checkered curtains that matched her bedspread and its light pine furniture set, seemed suddenly inappropriate. The _Swift_ pictures and motivational posters seemed to mock her as she struggled to find a response to the ridiculous assertion that wasn’t an outright denial, which she knew Judy wouldn’t accept. Finally, she settled on, “Why do you think that?”

Maybe a little condescending, but better than calling her crazy for even thinking that in the first place.

“I just.” Judy picked at one of her nails as Sharla put iodine on another cotton ball. The bottom scratch was still oozing a little. Judy’s forehead wrinkled. “I was so _mean._ If I hadn’t said the first stupid thing on my tongue, then maybe he wouldn’t have-”

“No.”

Judy looked at her. Looked away again. “What do you mean, ‘no?’”

“I mean that’s not how it works. Bullies don’t leave you alone just because you’re nice to them. Elsewise he’d have left you alone a long time ago.”

“But they say…”

Judy went quiet, and for once, Sharla had no guesses. She wasn’t great at people-things, but she was usually good at Judy-things; this was something else. “Who says what?”

“Well, you’ve been there. In class, when they separate us. Adults say all the time that you hafta be gentle with boys. And we always thought it was dumb, because our friends aren’t like that. But even our _dads_ say boys hurt girls, and they were boys once. Maybe they were onto something, right? I mean Gideon just scratched my face, it’s not like he–even though for a second I thought–but that was stupid, of course he–anyway, it’s always girls gotta be gentle and polite, because boys can’t control themselves. In class, or when our parents talk to us about dating and stuff, they teach us how to protect ourselves. They tell you to be prepared to use what you have on paw as a weapon, and to check for attackers if you walk alone at night...even with mammals you know, in situations that aren’t supposed to be bad, let them down easy and be nice because they might get violent, or...it was all just ridiculous things adults said. Before. But Gideon never hurt me until I pushed him into it. So it was really _my_ fault that this happened. I’m just a dumb bunny anyway, and I’ll be fine.”

“Never in my whole life have I ever thought of you as a dumb bunny,” Sharla said with a frown, feeling a little ill at the contrast between Judy’s washed-out chirp and her drooping ears, “but _what the hell,_ Judy? I mean okay, maybe they’re right, _maybe_ all of that’s true and our friends are the exception to the rule, but even so, it’s not your fault. They tell us that to protect us from the fallout, not to blame us for somebody else’s bad choices!”

“It was _my_ bad choice to be mean, Sharla. And it was _my_ bad choice to try and make it up to him. I should know by now that I’m stupid when I’m flustered.”

“And that’s _still_ not a reason to carve up your face. You went _years_ being bullied by that jerk and managed not to pull a knife on him. Why does he get a pass? Just because he’s a boy doing what boys do? Will didn’t treat you like that. Mark and Bobby don’t act like that. They’re boys. Bobby’s a big predator, too, so that’s not even a factor. I still think adults are dribbling fuckwits.”

“Sharla!”

She snorted and wrapped the bloody cotton balls in some tape so that she could throw them away when they went into the bathroom to wash Judy’s face. “I’m not apologizing for swear words applied appropriately. My mama says worse all the time. _Grownups_ are stupid, not you. And they’re mostly talking about sex stuff anyway when they say that. I looked at the guidebook in Mrs. Appleton’s classroom. It doesn’t even apply here. Your individual sums might be correct, but you’re usin’ the wrong equation so your answer doesn’t make sense.”

“...You’re right, I’m just being stupid,” said Judy. She brought her paw up to her cheek, but dropped it instead of touching the claw marks. She sounded funny, kind of distant and a tiny bit too loud, but this was an extraordinary situation. Anyone’s personal patterns would be disrupted in an extraordinary situation, right?

“Wait.” Sharla turned her head and looked at Judy peripherally. That was one of the fundamental weaknesses in sheep; they mostly had the same kind of eyes as other mammals, but her peripheral vision was still better than looking at stuff straight on. She’d almost certainly need glasses by the time she was 40. “Is that why you didn’t want to go home? You think you’re gonna get in trouble for this? They’ll blame you?”

“Or worse, try and use it as an excuse to separate me from my friends. Maybe not you, since sheep are prey, but Bobby for sure, and maybe Sylvia too. It’s...I’m applying for scholarships right now. I’m trying to graduate top of the class so that maybe ZU will offer an academic scholarship even though I’m a bunny. You guys are my real family sometimes. You care about _me,_ not...who you think I’m supposed to be. I don’t feel pressured to be something else with you. I don’t think I could handle the pressure if they found out. I was just spooked, and I was dumb, and honestly I’ll be fine. We’re 17, not 5. I don’t need Mama and Daddy to kiss it better every time I get a little scratch.”

Sharla wasn’t sure that was how these things worked, but all of Judy’s _words_ made sense, individually and as sentences. Judy was sitting up straight again, and she was communicating verbally, and her eyes weren’t glassy anymore, so maybe her reservations had nothing to do with the concepts at hoof. Maybe she was uncomfortable with the situation, not with Judy’s sudden flip. Mammals were weird anyway, and hey–at least she didn’t have to murder Gideon. She put her own discomfort out of her mind, like Judy had done before when Sharla had encountered problems, and suggested, “Why don’t we go wash the blood out of your fur so I can bandage those cuts.”

 _Those cuts._ Judy seemed to be more or less returned to herself, so Sharla didn’t _have_ to murder Gideon, but her truck was old and fussy enough that maybe if she just _happened_ to run him over, the constables would accept “faulty brakes” as a reasonable explanation.

* * *

Sundays were supposed to be free days, according to the day planner that kept her life in order, but Sharla found herself sequestered in her room with Judy, poring over the packet from their physics class. Up till now, Judy had shown reasonable aptitude for, but no real interest in, Sharla’s favorite subject, so this sudden drive to complete the packet days ahead of schedule was unexpected. It was nice, though, to be working on something fun. After Friday’s breakdown and the unsettling quiet on Saturday, Judy seemed to be back to her old self.

Of course she wouldn’t be kept down too long. _This_ was Sharla’s best friend. Enthusiastic, indomitable.

“Okay,” Judy said, pointing a carrot at page 6, “I know we’re talking about velocity here but I don’t know how it fits into this word problem. Will you explain it to me?”

Sharla snorted in amusement. Bunnies were known for carrots because they were a major export of Bunnyburrow, but Judy actually _liked_ them. “You should get a pen shaped like a carrot. Maybe then you could use _it_ as a pointer and stop eating those things.”

Judy rolled her eyes and took a vicious bite out of her treat, exaggerating a moment of open-mouthed chewing. She knew exactly what Sharla found gross and weird, and delighted in freaking her out. _This_ was Sharla’s best friend. Playful and focused all at once.

“Anyway,” she continued, valiantly ignoring Judy’s little display, “I’ll explain the problem after dinner if you still need it. You already know this stuff, honey.”

“Right.” Judy made an odd face, but it smoothed out quickly in favor of a bashful grin. “You’re probably right. I’m dumb when I’m hungry.”

“If ‘distractible’ and ‘grouchy’ are the same thing as ‘dumb,’ then I guess,” replied Sharla doubtfully, because that was just silly. Judy was top of their class.

“Then let’s go make some dinner!”

 _“I’ll_ make some dinner,” she corrected primly. “You park your tail on a chair _far away_ from the stove and tell me about your cop stuff, or...anything. You’re a menace in the kitchen.”

“It’s true, I’m a little dumb with that, too,” said Judy a bit more quietly, and Sharla felt that there was something she was missing.

Nothing food wouldn’t fix, she was sure. _This_ was her best friend. Scratches or not, the twitch in her nose was the same, and her ears were upright per usual. She looked happy. She was _fine._ Come graduation, they’d probably share a secret laugh about this–not about the blood, but about how dumb Gideon Grey was, and how silly it had been for either of them to spare a minute thinking about his mangy tail. If there was one thing Sharla knew from all those times her best friend had loaned Sharla her support and talked her through hard times, it was that not even a big mean stupid bully could get into _Judy Hopps’s_ head.

* * *

Graduation was afforded far more pomp and ceremony than Sharla thought was necessary, especially in a town like Bunnyburrow, where each graduating class had so many students that the ridiculous pageantry had to be split into three nights. Due to the small size of the town relative to the giant population, roughly three-quarters of students opted to homeschool with packets, so Sharla hadn’t even met most of her graduating class. She’d almost decided against going to the ceremony later tonight, but Judy was the valedictorian, and was supposed to give a speech, so Sharla had promised to be there to support her.

“This is stupid,” she grumbled anyway, because the robes itched and the hat didn’t fit right and she couldn’t even _keep_ the robes to alter into a wizard costume for All Hallows. She just wanted to get to the afterparty. Bobby was bringing his older brother’s homemade wines and craft brews, and per Bunnyburrow tradition, none of the adults would bother to get after them for being underage. Not that many bunnies could say it would be their first time drinking, but Sharla never had, not even at the Hopps farm where ale was practically a food group and even babies got rum on their gums during teething.

Judy, already looking at home in her robes with her cap discarded somewhat carelessly on Sharla’s bed, glanced up from her binder. It was thin, only containing notes for her speech and a few blank sheets of paper for padding, but Judy had decorated it with carrot stickers, because of course she had. Sharla didn’t know anyone who liked carrots as much as Judy did, which was weird, considering her dislike for her family’s profession. She nodded and gestured to Sharla. “I know, right? You should be giving this speech. You’re the smartest mammal in our graduating class.”

“My GPA’s lower than yours,” Sharla countered, grimacing at her reflection in the mirror before turning away. Judy looked like a witch from the Harry Otter series, but Sharla just looked like a frump. She knew that Judy was probably right: she _was_ the smartest mammal in their graduating class. Academic pursuits had always come easily to her, and college was going to be a nightmare, because she’d never had to learn how to study. However, while Judy had been aiming for a scholarship, Sharla had not; now that Granny was dead the Woolston family had enough money to put her through college easily, and she had prioritized other things, allowing such subjects as art and gym to slide from A’s to B’s. Furthermore, Judy had participated in extracurriculars, and Sharla had mostly sat around in the band room or at home after school, aside from that one month where she had foolishly made friends with her brother’s stoner friends.

Judy sighed. “I can’t do this, Shar. I’m no good at public speaking.”

“You’re a _cheerleader,_ Jude. You get students riled up and excited. What’s the difference?”

“This is important?”

Sharla laughed and sat down next to her best friend, patting her playfully (and carefully; she couldn’t forget about their size difference) on the head. “This is high school and you’re probably not going to see most of these mammals again. I doubt anyone would notice if you just quoted Daria Morgenheffer’s speech from _Is It College Yet?_ word for word.”

Judy ducked her head, but the motion did not hide her giggles, especially when she replied, “How much trouble do you think I’d be in if I scrapped this and did that instead?”

“I mean, I don’t _suggest_ it. I’m just saying you _could._ Realistically, any adult who caught you would have to admit to watching a spinoff of the _worst_ MTV show to date, and any student who recognized it wouldn’t give a care. But I like your speech.”

“I don’t know, it’s kind of dumb,” said Judy with a strange expression on her face. It made Sharla slightly uncomfortable. She didn’t know how to respond to these weird (albeit infrequent) bouts of self-deprecation, because Judy was _known_ for her optimism and confidence in her actions. She couldn’t exactly pinpoint when it had started–maybe during her last breakup? Judy hadn’t really talked about the details, so maybe Emma had been a little meaner than Judy had mentioned when describing their final fight–but it didn’t really make sense. Judy was one of the only students at Bunnyburrow High that was able to keep up with Sharla intellectually; she _wasn’t_ dumb, no matter what she kept repeating.

“It’s the whole ceremony that’s dumb,” Sharla decided to say, because the last time they’d gone the rounds with this, they’d both been bitter for days. Judy hadn’t even been able to admit what she’d _said,_ and with no hard evidence, the only argument Sharla had had was an overbearing affirmation. It was probably just silly teenager stuff anyway. It would fix itself once they both went off to college…

...Apart, for the first time since they were six years old. “This is the last time we’ll be in school together. I’m gonna miss you, honey.”

Judy offered her a smile. “I’ll miss you too, but I promise I’ll be cheering for you. We’ll talk on the phone, and you can be sure that I’ll be watching when you blast off to go to space the first time or...however that works.”

“And I’ll email my cousin Penny. She’ll be at ZU too,” she suggested, nudging Judy in the shoulder. “Well, she’s my second cousin. Maybe. Or maybe her mom’s a family friend? Anyway, I’m pretty sure she’ll be in your year, and you gotta have a sheep at your back.”

“What? Why specifically a sheep?”

“Oh, you know,” she said with a casual shrug. She didn’t know how to say _I worry about how nice you are_ or _Penny’s not afraid to get her hooves dirty if someone hurts you again_ without sounding condescending, so she defaulted to humor. “We’re a versatile bunch. She could help you study. Or kill your enemies. Whatever needs doing.”

Judy laughed, seemingly over whatever strange melancholy that had been, and hugged Sharla tightly. “You’ve been the best friend I could ever have asked for. You promise me you’ll try to find new friends at U of A, and I’ll talk to this Penny. If she’s anything like you, we’ll get along fine, I’m sure. I don’t think either of us can promise we’ll stay the same forever, but thank you so much for being there.”

“Yeah,” Sharla replied. It was going to be scary to go so far away all alone, but it was worth the stress and loss of companionship if she eventually got to go up to the ISS. “We’re amazing, you and me. Thanks for inspiring me to follow my dreams. Thanks for everything.”


End file.
